Explains the chronology that left Puerto del Carmen without sunbeds

The mayor of Tías: "We have not yet gone to the Prosecutor's Office, but if the lawyers say that the City Council has been harmed, we will go"

The mayor of Tías, Pancho Hernández, has clarified that he has not yet gone to the Prosecutor's Office to denounce the awarding of the hammock and umbrella service in Puerto del Carmen, which the company Sepla stopped providing in ...

April 3 2013 (18:10 WEST)
The mayor of Tías: We have not yet gone to the Prosecutor's Office, but if the jurists say that the City Council has been harmed, we will go
The mayor of Tías: We have not yet gone to the Prosecutor's Office, but if the jurists say that the City Council has been harmed, we will go

The mayor of Tías, Pancho Hernández, has clarified that he has not yet gone to the Prosecutor's Office to denounce the awarding of the hammock and umbrella service in Puerto del Carmen, which the company Sepla stopped providing in the middle of Holy Week, but he does not rule out doing so. "If in the end the lawyers tell us that this damage has been caused, do not doubt that this mayor has the obligation to bring to the attention of the courts those damages that have been caused to the institution or those actions that have not been legal," he said this Wednesday on Radio Lanzarote.

The mayor has explained the chronology that led Puerto del Carmen to run out of sunbeds in the middle of the Easter holidays. Thus, he has assured that the company communicated in writing to the City Council on March 14 at 13.05 hours that "on April 1 it would cease to provide this service". "They did not argue why," he indicated.

Subsequently, on March 20, the company registered another letter in the City Council, in which "it said that the City Council had the obligation to subrogate the 21 workers on staff". "After studying it, the lawyers told us that no way. Thinking that the company could be communicating this to the workers, always supposedly, we acted and asked them to remove the equipment from the beach," the mayor said.

"Company ploy"

In a legal report from the City Council, dated March 22, it is stated that Secapla "uses the ploy of renouncing the concession contract, trying to create the appearance of breaches by the Administration." In this way, according to this report, it would be intended to avoid "the initiation of the contract termination file, the loss of the constituted bond, the payment of all amounts owed to the administration and the compensation to be practiced for the damages caused."

In addition, as the mayor has pointed out on Radio Lanzarote, with this resignation the company "avoids assuming and complying with its labor obligations contracted with its workers, inventing the figure of business succession and, therefore, the subrogation of its personnel by the administration".

Finally, on Easter Saturday, the head of the Local Police of Tías called the mayor to inform him that "on Good Friday the removal of sunbeds had been carried out" by the company, which "did not even comply with what it said", with its removal from the beaches on April 1.

"No plan B"

Although the City Council knew that the company was going to withdraw on April 1, the mayor has acknowledged that the City Council did not have a plan B. "There is no plan B. The City Council does not have sunbeds or umbrellas. The only thing that fits are two things, the law says it clearly: it can be managed by the City Council or we can put it out to public tender," he indicated.

Faced with this scenario, the government group intends to put the service out to public tender. "The specifications could be finalized next week, but then they have to be audited, complete the entire file, approve it in plenary and send it to be published. At least a month and a half, no matter how much we hurry. Once published, offers will be submitted and the Contracting Table must be convened, which is not usually convened less than three times. We are at the beginning of April and I see myself awarding the tender in mid-June. I hope that tourists will have sunbeds in the summer", the mayor of Tías has confided.

Unpaid canon and unfinished works

Pancho Hernández has explained that the problems with Secapla began when the former mayor, José Juan Cruz Saavedra, signed "the extension" in 2004, which, as they assured from the City Council through a statement, was done in an "illegal and arbitrary" manner. "Since that year, Secapla understands that the canon that had to be paid was not the one established in the contract. And that's where a litigation with the City Council begins," he said. "An important debt has been generated to the City Council and there are firm judgments for the first two years after the extension, of something more than 600,000 euros" of debt, he stated.

Thus, only for the non-payment of the canon, the company owes the City Council "1.7 million euros". "In 2012, it had to have entered 980,000 euros and only entered 650,000 euros," Pancho Hernández has affirmed. To the 1.7 million debt, we would have to add the 562,000 euros that the company did not invest in works in Puerto del Carmen, despite the fact that it was stated "in the clauses of the extension of the contract, of June 23, 2004".

And, in addition, we would also have to add what the City Council has spent since 2004 on the surveillance and lifeguarding of Playa Grande, which should have been provided by the company, but only did so in Los Pocillos and Matagorda. "At least, until December 31, 2011, because from January 1, 2012, we forced it to comply with the contract and, therefore, with the surveillance of Playa Grande".

During the time that the company did not provide this service in Playa Grande, the City Council had to first make an agreement with the Red Cross, and as a result of the creation of the Emergency Consortium, it was this entity that hired Emerlan. "From the City Council, an amount is contributed to the Consortium. We have asked them to break down these amounts for us, to know what has been allocated to the Fire Station and what to Emerlan for the surveillance of this beach", the mayor of Tías has stated.

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